Pavel Durov, the Russian founder of the popular secure messaging app Telegram has revealed in a series of tweets that U.S. intelligence agencies tried twice to bribe the company's developers to weaken encryption in the app, presumably so it would be easier for the agencies to obtain communications sent via its users. Durov also says he was pressured by the FBI to do so.

In the past five months the number of Telegram messaging app users has increased by 12 million, reaching 62 million people. Will the `Russian WhatsApp" be serious competition for the giants of the industry?

iCliniq.com have just launched a Telegram bot so that you can ask their doctors anything from the comfort of your smartphone, messaging them any time, anywhere. Questions are answered within a matter of hours by their team of 800+ doctors across 71+ specialities, for $19 a month.

Chinese state-run newspaper People's Daily accused Telegram of aiding human-rights lawyers and advocates, who allegedly used the app and its "Secret Chat" mode to engage in “anti-government" activity.

The new version of Telegram allows you to play media from services like YouTube, Vimeo or SoundCloud directly from Telegram – without having to leave the app. Just tap on the preview of a link to an external media to view the video or listen to the audio file (speaking of audio files, they are now beautifully rendered and played in chats).

Offical blog post.

Telegram was labeled an “anti-government” tool in a Sunday article in state-run newspaper Peoples Daily. That label was applied after the service was reportedly used by a set of human rights lawyers who were arrested by the government on Friday. They are said to have used the service and its self-destructive messaging feature, to plan protests and generally go about their work with less chance of the government’s eavesdropping.

An attack started in India and South East Asia but went global soon, affecting Telegram users worldwide.

Telegram, one of the many instant messengers available on Windows Phone platform has received a small update that brings some new features and improvements.

Hi! I'm Taylor, your personal travel assistant! I try to make your travels easier by giving you advice on where to go, what to do and who to meet. And yes, I'm a robot

Free, open and super easy to use, bots are simply Telegram accounts operated by software – not people – and they'll often have AI features. They can do anything – teach, play, search, broadcast, remind, connect, integrate with other services, or even pass commands to the Internet of Things.